HarperCollins India has rolled out a film that looks to push the message of how books create stories. The film has been conceptualised by Taproot Dentsu.
The film opens with an elderly man travelling in a bus. The man, who seems troubled by something forgets to take his book along as he exits the bus. The book is picked up by a younger man seated in the bus. A lady boards the bus and notices the book in his hand. The man offers the lady the book and hands it over to her. As the lady is glancing through the book, the man who had handed it over to her, gets up from his seat to get off. Since the lady believes he is the owner of the book, she gestures to him to take the book back. He replies with a signal to keep it.
The lady looks confused. As she opens the first page of the book, she finds a message that reads 'If lost, please return to...'. The lady reads that and smiles to herself.
The scene shifts to a cafe. The lady is seated there alone, reading the book. After giving it a short thought, she messages the number mentioned in the book. After not getting a reply for a bit, the lady seems impatient, and calls on the number.
The elderly man who owned the book, answers the phone. The lady is surprised. The man on the other line hears the lady's voice and believes it's his love, Firoza's call. During the course of the call it is revealed that Firoza is someone whom the elderly man lost in a plane crash.
As the lady hears on, the film ends with a message, 'Stories create books. Books create stories.'
Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO, HarperCollins India, said, “We made this short film to celebrate our lifelong passion for storytelling. Something that simply reaffirmed the power of stories and the fact that books open up a world of unimaginable possibilities. And in Dentsu, we found the perfect partner. Narayan's love for the written word and Titus' spontaneous creative impulse, were the perfect combination. We all have a story and we love stories - and we thought that this was a great way to say it!" ”
Narayan Devanathan, group executive and strategy officer, Dentsu India, said, "In the advertising business, we keep talking about how we are all story-tellers. Here was an intriguing brief that had us create a story about stories, without the story-teller intruding. When we asked Ananth “What do you want to happen as a result of this? The outcome I want is for the viewer to say ‘I want to pick up a book now!’ after seeing the film.” The insight was—in retrospect—very simple. Each of us is a story-creator, sometimes not knowing that’s what we are, mostly not knowing what triggers await us around the corner. That’s the basic reason books appeal to us: they tell the stories we believe we could have created. After all, our lives are a series of stories.”
Titus Upputuru, creative head, Taproot Dentsu, added, “HarperCollins is such an iconic brand with about 200 years history. It was a great experience to work on this brand. Ananth’s brief took me back to my literature days. Books contain stories. But I thought there are stories that exist outside the books as well. That’s how the line came up. Books create stories. Several stories emerged from this line. We just decided to break the campaign with the Firoza one.”
CREDITS:
Client: HarperCollins
Chief executive officer: Ananth Padmanabhan
Head – marketing and corporate communications: Sonali Singh
Creative agency: Taproot Dentsu
Group executive and strategy officer: Narayan Devanathan
GM: Harjot Narang
Creative head: Upputuru Titus
Senior vice president: Sunita Prakash
Agency producer: Dawa Lama
Production house: Absolute Productions
Director: Srinivas Sunderrajan
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